


No Sliding Scale

by thegrumblingirl



Series: I Can Feel Your Anger Marching [2]
Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Genre: DCCU, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, and then start working together, and trust each other, but actually bother to learn more about each other beyond DO YOU BLEED, superhero angst, this is my version of Batman v Superman, wherein Batman and Superman don't just decide to kill each other in a testosterone-induced haze
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 06:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6363406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Master Wayne," Alfred's voice sounded from behind him, stern in a way Bruce hadn't heard in a long time. "I will not stand idly by whilst you go on a one-man suicide mission against an alien who just saved the world."</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Sliding Scale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countermeasures](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countermeasures/gifts).



> This is my... rewrite, if you will, of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The movie I would have liked to see, with the characters as they exist in my head.

“Master Wayne,” Alfred’s voice sounded from behind him, stern in a way Bruce hadn’t heard in a long time. “I will not stand idly by whilst you go on a one-man suicide mission against an alien who just saved the world.”

Bruce turned on his heels, the frown on his face matching the one usually worn by a cowl. “Saved the world?” he demanded. “He let thousands of innocent people die!”

“Let, Bruce?” Alfred stepped closer, desperate to make the man see sense. “What do you say when people lose their lives to your quest for justice?”

Bruce squared his jaw. “I admit that it’s my fault.”

“Before that. The thing you never say _out loud_.”

For a brief moment, Bruce couldn’t look Alfred in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

“Precisely. Yes, thousands died in Metropolis and other parts of the world today. And I’m sure he didn’t mean for that to happen any more than you would, and that, if he could have prevented it, he would have. You may have lost fewer people in twenty years than he did in a day, but I can’t remember when this became a sliding scale, Bruce.”

At the note of finality in Alfred’s voice, Bruce turned to leave. He came as far as the end of the walkway, next to the sliding panel that hid his suit. Next to the glass case that displayed another. “One more thing.” He stopped without looking back. “Superman did not kill Jason. And neither did you.”

** * **

** 3 months later. **

“Batman,” Clark scoffed before taking a sip of coffee. When Lois came to stand next to his desk, he handed her a second mug he’d just rescued from the rapidly-emptying pot in the break room.

“What about him?” she asked, using the mug to warm her hands, turning towards the TV mounted up on the wall.

“He’s been more active in the past few months than he’s been in years. Not since the Joker, apparently,” Clark replied with a note of incredulity at the words. The _Joker_. What a name for someone who killed for sport.

“I’ll bet Gotham’s unsure what to think of that,” Lois said quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“I spoke to Commissioner Gordon of the GCPD a few years ago, before the Joker killed Robin. He—”

“Robin?” Clark queried, confused.

Lois looked sideways at him, a small smile on her face. “You really are from Smallville, aren’t you?”

Clark tilted his head, giving her his best unimpressed-with-that-line glare. She didn’t bat an eye.

“Batman didn’t always work alone. He took people in. Orphans,” she clarified. “A regular little bat family, they called it for a time. There’s not much left of it now. The Joker killed Robin before they finally caught him, and Batman wasn’t seen or heard of for a while.”

Clark looked back at the newscast, showing a shadowy figure racing across rooftops. It was archive footage, recorded on a phone several years ago, going by the grainy images.

“You spoke to their police commissioner?”

“I did. He said that he never wanted Gotham to need someone like the Batman, but that he wasn’t going to stand in front of them and pretend that they didn’t.”

Clark’s eyebrows shot up. “He said that to you? Did you print it?”

“I didn’t. It was off the record.”

Clark’s surprised expression turned into a frown. “Nothing is ever off the record with you.”

“The Bat wasn’t the story I was chasing,” Lois evaded his question.

“Then what was?”

“Bruce Wayne.” Again, she could see Clark was drawing a blank. “His family as good as owns Gotham. His parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, kept the city afloat and alive by sheer force of will and about a dozen charities and foundations in the 80s. They were killed in the streets, with the boy watching.”

Clark looked down at his mug of coffee as he processed this. Helplessness tightened his chest at the memory.

“He grew up alone in that big mansion, pretty much. After college, he disappeared, and everyone thought he’d gone and gotten himself killed somewhere. When he came back, he only barely saved his company from being taken over. After that, he became the billionaire playboy everyone expected of him, but he continued the contributions to the city his parents wanted Gotham to be.”

“And what was so interesting about that?”

“A few years back, someone used his thumb print to manipulate the stock market and bankrupt him. One of the members on the board tried to make off with what was left of Wayne Enterprises, but he proved just in time that it was fraud. I suppose you don’t remember Bane, either.” She concluded with an arched eyebrow.

“I’ll do my reading next time, I promise,” he tried to tease back, but his mind was elsewhere. “You said _he_ proved it was fraud?”

Lois nodded. “Yeah. Gordon said that Gotham’s Major Crimes Unit gets a little more work day-to-day than the fraud division.” Lois paused. “He told me it was more like they were assisting Wayne in the investigation than the other way around, and that he’d have made a great detective, if he hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

“Did you speak to Wayne himself?”

“Briefly, outside the courtroom.”

“What was he like?”

“What you’d expect. Charming, self-assured. Trying very hard to make it look like he didn’t care about anything.”

Clark tilted his head. “You don’t believe his playboy image?”

Lois scoffed. “That mask is too cultivated to be real, and his fight to build the city back up too gruelling. Even Gordon admitted that, though he said he wouldn’t presume to know Wayne very well.”

“But Gordon knows the Batman?” Clark asked, circling back to the reason they were talking about this in the first place.

“He wouldn’t tell me that much, Clark.”

“Why didn’t you print it?”

Lois pressed her lips together for a moment. “Because Batman saved my life that night.”

“What?” Several heads turned at the sudden volume of Clark’s voice. Lois motioned for him to hush and follow her to her cubicle. “What are you saying? You go easy on every guy with a cape who does you a favour?”

Lois rolled her eyes. “I’m saying, I’d be dead if Batman hadn’t shown up at the docks that night.”

“You said you were following up on Bruce Wayne.”

“Yes,” she said, drawing out the word in the way Clark knew meant she was going to tell him a story of how she did things her editors had told her not to. “But there was also a story in there about an emerging new drug ring. So I went down to the docks to take a few pictures.”

“Things went sideways.”

“Not quite. They realised I was there and I managed to hide, but they were six and I was one. They’d have found me eventually, if the Batman hadn’t grabbed me and parked me on top of a stack of shipping containers,” she recounted drily. “Then, he went back down to take care of the criminals. Bound them, one by one, left them knocked out in one big gaggle. Then he marked the drugs to make sure none of it would go missing in evidence, got me back down, and asked if I’m ok before he called it in. To Gordon himself, probably. He made me get out of there so the police wouldn’t find me. They never knew I was involved.”

“He’s a vigilante, Lois,” Clark leaned towards her, incredulous at what she’d told him. “A guy dressing up as a bat, terrifying an entire city.”

“He’s not the only one wearing a mask here, Clark,” Lois murmured back, careful not to talk too loudly and draw any more attention.

“So what, you’re defending him?”

“I’m telling you maybe we can’t afford to see this quite so black-and-white,” she shot back. “No,” she immediately forestalled his protests by taking one of his hands in hers. “I’m your friend, Clark, I’m on your side. But I also know that the statue hasn’t helped you sleep any better.” Clark gently withdrew his hand, drew away entirely as he stood up straight, clearly wanting nothing more than to turn and run. “You want this to be simple, I know. But it can’t be.”

** * **

“ _Superman answers to no-one but himself. Not even, I think, to God_.”

** * **

** A few weeks later. **

“Excuse me, Mr Wayne.”

Meeting the young reporter from Metropolis had done more than keep Bruce from finding out more about the mysterious woman he’d seen at Luthor’s event.

“Maybe he just wants to help.”

“Like he helped Lois Lane in Nairomi? You know her, don’t you? What’s she saying about it?”

“She says it keeps her up at night.”

“And Superman? Do you think it keeps him up at night? I’m sorry, Mr… Kent, was it? Maybe it’s the Gotham City in me. We just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns. Excuse me.”

Kent’s voice quietly stopped him leaving. “Would he be able to change your mind if he came forward?”

“Came forward?” Curious, Bruce stepped closer.

“Contact the Senator, agree to a Congressional hearing.”

“Now why would he do that?” He tried to keep the suspicion out of his voice, tried to mock instead, as if all this talk were far too serious for the Prince of Gotham.

The earnestness on Kent’s face was heartbreaking. “So people won’t be afraid of him anymore.”

Bruce’s eyes searched his. “I’m not sure what could change my mind, Mr Kent. Goodbye now.”

He’d lost the transfer device, but there were other things occupying Bruce’s mind when he returned to the house. In the midst of trying to find out more about Luthor’s plans with the Kryptonite, he’d seen several things he didn’t understand yet. He’d spotted the Russian mercenary who’d been in Nairomi, he was sure of it; and it had looked like he was part of Luthor’s private security detail. If he was working for the young industrialist, then what had been his role in taking Lane hostage? He gritted his teeth. Without the drive, he had no hope of untangling this with certainty. He took off his suit jacket and his tie, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. He’d just have to do some more digging into what he did have. Sitting down at the computer, its vast array of screens blinking information at him, he stopped short for a moment.

There was the other thing. The matter of Clark Kent, who’d known too much and revealed too little. What were his ties to Lois Lane and, through her, to Superman? Did he know who he was, his secret identity, even? What if more people at the Daily Planet did?

Bruce had read everything there’d been to read about the initial reports, the leaked exposé Lane had written and that had surfaced on the Internet when the Daily Planet wouldn’t run it. She’d retracted everything, but by then it had been too late. General Zod had already found them. There’d been rumours flying about her and Superman, that she’d dropped the story because they’d fallen in love. As Bruce dug up all the files he had on her and her investigation into the crashed space ship embedded in the glacier up in the Far North, he frowned. She had to have found out who Superman really was, where he came from. Not just from Krypton.

He pushed everything aside, all the research he’d done into Krypton, into Superman, all the little snippets of video footage of sightings and rescues, all the clippings of newspaper articles, all the government data he could get his hands on pertaining to the crashed ship that still sat in the middle of Metropolis. Monitors empty apart from one terminal, stretching his fingers over the keyboard, he decided it was time to do a little hacking.

Hours later, he’d compiled everything he could. Travel receipts logged with the Daily Planet, research notes, and Lane’s search history: encrypted though her computer was, and careful and experienced in hiding her tracks though she was. There were always ways to find someone. He stopped when he read a name that rang familiar. Smallville.

“Smallville, Smallville,” he mumbled to himself, another search terminal popping up at the press of a few keys. “What happened in Smallville, Miss Lane?”

Smallville. Of course. In the middle of nowhere, Kansas, there’d been reports of people claiming to have seen something like a meteor coming down from the sky, crashing somewhere on someone’s farm land more than thirty years ago. The Internet not being ubiquitous back then, it had only appeared as a small news item in the back pages of a local paper. Authorities didn’t appear to have taken it seriously, as no-one investigated. There was only speculation on how old Superman could possibly be, but what if… Bruce looked further. A school bus accident about twelve years later, featuring a miraculous rescue no-one could (or wanted to) explain. Something was not right in Smallville, as small incidents like these seemed to keep cropping up in local news reports. Fingers flying across the keys, Bruce checked Lane’s notes. She’d spoken to a man named Pete Ross, who’d been involved in the accident as a child. On a hunch, Bruce checked the school’s records and scanned the names of the other students in his class. Halfway through the list, his breath hitched.

Kent, Clark.

Dumbfounded, Bruce sat back in his chair, wincing slightly from the tension in his back from hunching over for so long. Clark Kent, Daily Planet.

“I’ll be damned.”

He remembered a story Gordon had once told the Batman, about a young officer who he’d recruited for his team just before Bane took Gotham hostage. ‘I told him,’ the Commissioner had recounted with a smile in his voice, ‘you’re a detective now, son. There are no more coincidences.’

** * **

Clark didn’t get back to his apartment until well after 1am. The fundraiser had gone on forever, and he had tried his best to find out more about Luthor and his powerful friends from the other journalists in attendance. Perry had sent him to cover the socialite angle, so at least no-one was surprised at the kinds of questions he was asking. One of the other reporters showed mercy and told him more about Bruce Wayne. About Wayne Enterprises, the tragic death of his parents, his charities, about the men and women he dated and the orphans he’d adopted and lost one by one. About the manor, in ruin and destitute. At some point, he’d heard enough. The event was wrapping up, and even without the things he wouldn’t be able to put into print, he had more than enough for the column Perry wanted him to write. Back home, he sat on the couch and put his head in his hands.

Wayne’s words came back to him. _“We just have a bad history with freaks dressed like clowns.”_ From what Clark could tell, he’d been thinking of the Joker, who’d been responsible for the death of one of Wayne’s wards, Jason Todd. Clark clenched his jaw. _I am not like him_ , he reminded himself. _I am nothing like the Joker_.

But then who was he? The nightmares never stopped telling him. _Murderer,_ they whispered. _Murderer._

Knowing he would likely get no sleep that night, Clark figured he might as well do what he’d promised Lois. To do his reading.

Bruce Wayne hadn’t come to Metropolis to socialise, he’d been on a mission. And Superman would find out why.

** * **

“Must there be a Superman?”

The Senator weighed her answer very carefully. “There _is_ ,” she replied at length. Bruce turned off the TV and tugged off his bow tie.

Alfred stood in the doorway behind him, cleaning his glasses. “Any luck with the files you got from Miss Prince?”

“They’re decrypting now,” Bruce sighed, turning towards the other man. “Did you see what Wallace Keefe did?”

Alfred nodded. “Keefe was the man you got out from under the rubble, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” Bruce looked at the screens, unseeing. “He couldn’t feel his legs.”

Putting his glasses back on, Alfred crossed the room to stand behind him, watching the progress bar on the screen. “I checked his records.” Tossing a pile of documents on the desktop next to Bruce’s elbow, he continued, “He’s been sending back the checks. With a little extra.”

Leafing through the photocopies, Bruce felt his blood run cold. “How didn’t I hear of this until now?”

“It’s only been four months. It wasn’t considered worthy of your attention.”

“Where is he now?”

“County jail. No-one to bail him out, and he doesn’t seem inclined to.”

“Post his bail, send someone to pick him up. Maybe he won’t talk to me, but I can at least get him off the streets.”

Alfred nodded, turning to leave, but then hesitated. “Have you found out any more about young Mister Kent?”

Bruce shook his head. “Not since what I told you a couple days ago. Every paper trail ends. But I’m keeping an eye on him.”

“Where’s Miss Lane, if I may ask?”

“In DC. She’s got military contacts there.”

“Are you keeping an eye on her as well?”

Bruce looked up at him. “What’s that shifty tone for, Alfred?”

His sometime-butler smiled that thin-lipped smile of his. “If she is Superman’s secret-keeper, she is also in constant danger.” Bruce’s eyes flickered to the information he had on Nairomi. A failed Agency mission, of all things. “Food for thought,” Alfred quipped and walked away.

It was hours and a very disturbing nightmare later that Bruce was staring at the screen, transfixed by what he was seeing. Metahumans.

A boy from Central City who could move faster than light. A cyborg cop, from what Bruce could tell, part human, part machine. A man living underwater, carrying a trident, like some myth straight out of Atlantis.

And a warrior who could never die. Bruce sat silently, staring at the unmistakable face of Diana Prince, in Belgium. In 1918.

Bruce swallowed. This was shaping up to be so much bigger than his grudge against an alien in a red cape.

** * **  


** A few days later **

The White Portuguese had docked just a few hours before nightfall. Perched on top of a nearby structure, the Batman looked through the scope of his rifle. The Russian mercenary was there again, shouting orders at the few other men remaining. Heaving the crate marked LexCorp into a truck, they seemed rather in a hurry. Silently, Batman took aim and fired. The tracker embedded itself in the side of the truck, activating on impact.

The Bat vanished as quickly and silently as he had arrived.

Floating in the air several miles above, Superman watched as the dark figure vanished into the night. Torn between following what Luthor was illegally transporting into the country and finding out more about Batman, he hovered for a moment. Then, he made his choice.

Batman got into the Tumbler, calling up the tracker info on the dashboard. The truck was moving slowly through the maze of shipping containers, towards the entrance to the harbour. He waited, knowing they wouldn’t clear the area for a while.

Confused, Clark tilted his head. What was he waiting for? Wasn’t he going to follow the truck? Try and intercept it? Using his advanced hearing, he eavesdropped on the man in the strange-looking vehicle.

“Did you mark the truck?” a disembodied voice asked. It was the same voice he’d heard through Wayne’s earpiece at the fundraiser. A frisson went through Clark when he realised that he’d been right. All that death that seemed to follow Wayne around… it had been of the Batman’s making. His own.

“I did.”

Superman reared back a little in the air, drifting backwards nearly a foot before he caught himself. Underneath, it was undoubtedly Wayne’s voice, but… altered. He had a voice-changer installed in his suit. Clark fought a laugh. The lengths they went to to disguise themselves…

“And what are you going to do now? Follow it? Intercept it… as you planned?”

So Bruce Wayne had planned on stealing the Kryptonite. Superman didn’t need a look inside the crate to know what it contained. He felt the pull of it even through the lead lining of the case that prevented him from seeing it. Something inside of him clenched at the thought of the Batman wanting him dead. After seeing Wallace Keefe branding Superman a false god, and hearing him yell that he was working for Bruce Wayne as he was being dragged away, it wasn’t hard to research that the Wayne Enterprise offices in Metropolis had been demolished during Superman’s fight with Zod. And Bruce Wayne had been there to dig Keefe out from under the beam that had destroyed his legs.

Now, under the cover of night, Superman listened as the Batman told ‘Alfred’ that, no, he’d track it to where Luthor would take it. (Alfred Pennyworth, Clark’s memory supplied. Bruce Wayne’s butler and legal guardian after his parents’ death. Good God.)

“It’s bigger than us now. And if Luthor knows something about all of these metahumans, and if he was involved with what happened in Nairomi… I need to know more before I show my hand.”

“Hmm. If you haven’t already,” Alfred mused.

Nairomi? Clark narrowed his eyes. What did the Bat know about that day that he didn’t?

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” came the Batman’s sure reply.

“Let us hope so.” A pause. “Did you see what Superman’s been up to the past few days?”

Silence from the Bat. Clark’s heart beat in his throat.

“Rescued a girl from a burning factory during the Day of the Dead festivities in Mexico City,” Alfred recounted. “Saved a space shuttle when its booster tanks blew on launch. Got people off the roofs of their houses during a flood in Croatia.”

No reply.

“It seems almost like he’s trying to prove Keefe wrong. And you.”

“Then why does he keep hiding? People have questions, but he is never around to answer them.”

“Perhaps he is afraid. He is not a symbol, like you. Speaking of hiding — you’d know a thing or two about that, wouldn’t you?”

Instead of a biting reply, Batman growled, “They’ve exited the harbour. I’ll be back across the bay in an hour.”

Superman had heard enough. Opting not to follow the Batmobile, as he’d heard it called, he instead turned towards downtown Metropolis.

** * **

When he got home, he checked his phone to see he’d missed three calls from Lois. After changing out of his suit and running fingers through his hair, he called her back.

“Clark, finally! Where have you been?”

“Checking up on someone.”

“You’re still pursuing the Batman lead?” There was reproach in her voice, but he knew Lois was well aware she didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to being stubborn about a story.

“Maybe,” he avoided answering the question. He heard her annoyed huff at the other end, but decided not to say anything to defend himself. “What were you calling about?”

“Well, first I wanted to ask if you were ok. Perry said you took off after the incident with the statue. And then Superman was suddenly all over the globe, helping out. So. Are you ok?”

“I’m alright.”

“Clark.”

“Look, I… they’re right, Lois. I’ve been hiding behind my cape, and I never… I don’t believe myself above humanity, Lois. But Superman sure as hell acts like he does.”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Can you reach out to Senator Finch?”

“Why? What do you want to do?”

“She’s been asking the right questions. Maybe it’s time Superman gave her some answers.”

Lois was quiet for a while. Clark could hear her breathing softly even though she probably had the phone angled away, as she often did when she wanted to think before answering. Eventually, she replied, “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you. What else did you want to talk about?”

“I finally got General Swanwick to analyse the bullet I dug out of my journal. Clark, I… It was manufactured by LexCorp.”

** * **

“News has just reached us from Washington that Superman has apparently agreed to appear before a Congressional hearing led by Junior Senator June Finch. This comes in the wake of the events in Nairomi, after which representatives of the village that was destroyed during the attack sought answers from the government; and an incident in downtown Metropolis. A man injured during the Kryptonian attack on the city defaced the Superman statue erected in memory of the events. Claiming to have worked for Wayne Enterprises, he graffitied the statue with the words, ‘FALSE GOD,’” the news anchor continued. “Now it is said that Superman will appear before the committee to address the controversy around what the government calls ‘shadow interventions,’ and public calls to hold him accountable for the casualties sustained.”

Bruce pressed the mute button before leaning back, pressing his hands to his tired eyes.

“It’s almost like he heard you,” Alfred’s amused voice sounded from the other side of the lab.

Bruce supressed the urge to throw the remote at his head.

** * **

**The next morning** , Bruce was on the way out the door when Alfred stopped him in the hallway.

“Christina called,” he announced without preamble. “You have a visitor at Wayne Tower.”

Knowing how Alfred loved to make him wait and guess, Bruce merely turned, hand on the door handle, and raised an eyebrow.

“Clark Kent from the Daily Planet.”

—

“Mr Kent. What can I do for you.”

“Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, Mr Wayne.”

Bruce shrugged elaborately. “Seeing as Metropolis can’t seem to get out of the news at the moment, I thought I’d keep myself apprised. Please, sit.” He gestured towards one of the armchairs in the corner of his office. “Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

If Kent was surprised to see the billionaire prepare it himself, using the very expensive coffee maker that stood in an alcove behind his large desk, he didn’t show it. Bruce brought over two steaming mugs, setting them on the low table between them.

“Alright. Shoot.”

“I wanted to talk to you about Lex Luthor.”

“Lex?” Bruce hadn’t known what to expect, but the forthright attitude with which Kent came right to the point caught him a little off guard. Then again, there had been the same edge to his voice when he’d asked him his opinion on the Bat vigilante in Gotham, he remembered. “What about him?”

“You’ve worked with his company in the past, haven’t you?”

“Well, we’ve been working on different sustainable energy technologies for the past ten years,” Bruce replied, “and when LexCorp approached us to lend a hand in the rebuilding of Metropolis, I saw no reason not to.”

“And before that?”

“We’ve collaborated on the odd project, but that was under the tutelage of his father. The energy project is the first led by Luthor junior.”

“I see.”

“What do you see, Mr Kent?”

Kent looked at him sideways, his eyes startlingly blue even through his glasses. Window glass, no doubt, Bruce thought to himself. There was no need for spectacles with 25/20 x-ray vision.

“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Lois Lane is in Washington right now, trying to follow up with the government on what they know about Nairomi.”

“You mean putting back Superman’s halo.” Wayne watched the blue eyes darken.

“He doesn’t have a halo.”

“She’s his girlfriend, she should know.”

“She’s not his girlfriend. She’s a journalist.”

“So she’s _your_ girlfriend, then?”

“I’m her friend. And because I’m her friend, she told me that the bullet one of the mercenaries shot right into her journal was manufactured by LexCorp. General Swanwick confirmed it, but isn’t willing to take that information public.”

_Well, damn._

“And you’re coming to me with this because..?” Bruce asked, hiding his surprise behind the rim of his mug.

“Because you can pass this on to the Batman.” This time, Wayne’s cover needed him to act incredulous.

“The Batman? What, you think he comes round for tea every Saturday?”

“No, but it’s no secret that you and the Bat both are close to Commissioner Gordon. Consider yourself the messenger.”

“And what makes you think either I or Gordon would play courier for you? Besides, the last time we met, you were ragging on me about civil liberties. Why do you suddenly want to work with the Batman?”

“The Batman has been more active since the Kryptonian attack,” Kent countered. “He has to know something. I don’t think Gordon would keep something like this from him. Question is, would you?”

** * **

Once you had access to the DoD’s file servers, it was remarkably cozy there. Still, Bruce had to work for a while to confirm what Kent had told him. The bullet had indeed been made by LexCorp.

“Luthor is trying to manipulate me,” he groused to Alfred, wiping his brow after training for over an hour.

“I think the customary answer at this point would be, ‘d’uh,’” Alfred plonked a bottle of water down in front of him. “But what could he be hoping to achieve by pitting you against Superman?”

“Trouble,” Bruce muttered darkly. “Remind you of anyone we know?”

** * **

Three days later, Bruce called Kent on the number he’d given him.

“Your concerns have been relayed to the Commissioner.”

“Has he spoken to the Bat?”

“I wouldn’t know. But I believe he will.”

“Thank you for letting me know. Was there anything else?”

Bruce hesitated. “Actually, yes. What do you know about metahuman theory?”

The hearing was set for 9am the next morning, and Clark was sitting on his bed in Metropolis, in his boxers, discussing metahuman theory with the man who he was 100 per cent sure was the man under Batman’s cowl. He could hardly believe himself, or the other man. He thought this was a good idea to discuss _now_? Never mind that Bruce Wayne, eccentric billionaire, would have never been caught dead discussing something so serious in public; he was discussing it with a _reporter_. Perhaps he was betting on Clark Kent’s relative inexperience and, so far, unimpressive scoop record, to keep this out of the morning paper.

“Out of curiosity, are you going to be at the hearing tomorrow? Is Miss Lane?”

“Lois will cover it for the Planet, seeing as she’s in Washington already. As for me, no. What about you? I understand one of your former employees will be there as a witness.”

“Yeah, Wallace Keefe. I’ll be there.”

“You bailed him out, didn’t you?”

“What makes you think that?” Against his will, Bruce smiled at the other man’s perceptiveness.

“Gut instinct.”

“Not bad.” One of the monitors to his right started flashing an alert. Bruce had taken care to mute all devices in the room so Superman wouldn’t be able to pick up on anything over the connection. “Excuse me, Kent, I have to go.”

“Alright. Goodbye, Mr Wayne.”

“Bye.”

** * **

“Mr Wayne,” Wallace Keefe breathed when Bruce appeared in front of him on Capitol Hill. “I had no idea you would be here.”

“Hello, Wallace,” Bruce shook his hand, careful not to let himself stare down at the man’s severed legs. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to see you earlier, but I trust you’ve been taken care of?”

“I have,” Keefe replied, patting the arm of his customised wheelchair with his right hand. “Thank you for bailing me out. I confess I… didn’t really want anyone to.”

“So I gathered. Still, I couldn’t let it lie. Look, we don’t have much time before the hearing starts, but there’s a question I wanted to ask you. Why did you send back the checks?”

“The checks?” Keefe looked honestly confused.

“The checks from the fund I set up for Wayne employees in Metropolis and their families. You’ve sent back every one of them. With messages rather like the one you sprayed onto the statue, blaming me.”

Keefe gaped at him like a fish out of water. “No, Mr Wayne, I… I never received any. And why would I blame you, y—you saved my life.”

The realisation ran down Wayne’s spine like ice. “I’m sorry, Mr Keefe, there is somebody I need to talk to. I’ll be right back.”

Turning towards the door, he saw Luthor stop to talk to the Senator. Setting his jaw, he moved past them quickly, making sure to remain in Luthor’s blind spot. Glancing up and down the corridors, he let his eyes search for a familiar face.

There.

Turning into the hallway on his right, tall, walking ramrod straight and staring right ahead, Superman’s cape billowed slightly behind him with each step. There was no way he could just walk up to him and tell him what he’d found out; but if it was true what they said about Superman, then he would be able to hear him from across the hall. Or even through a wall. Turning left, he slipped into the men’s bathroom. He quickly cleared the stalls, then leaned against the door from the inside.

“Listen to me, Superman. Listen,” he demanded, making his voice deeper and more gravelly, the way he’d done before Alfred had built the voice changer into his suits. “There’s something wrong. Luthor planted the Russian in Nairomi to make sure the situation with Lois Lane would escalate; he made the bullets. Now, he’s here and I’m pretty sure Wallace Keefe was destined to be his patsy if he’d gotten to him. No time to explain, but something is wrong. Watch out.”

—

Clark’s step nearly faltered when he heard a dark voice call out to him, urging him to listen. It sounded like… again, it sounded like Wayne, but without the mechanical distortion of a voice simulator. He focused on another sound, something that would tell him for sure.

Wayne’s heartbeat.

It was him.

And now he was telling Superman that Lex Luthor had been manipulating them from the very beginning. _Something is wrong. Watch out._ He passed the men’s room the voice came from, still staring straight ahead. Turning left, the door to the committee room was open, press photographers crowding the door and of the room. Sensing no movement from the restroom, he walked forward.

Behind him, the door opened with a nearly inaudible click.

—

Wayne slipped out of the restroom and kept his distance until Superman had passed the threshold. Then, he quickly slipped inside before the doors closed, making his way towards the far wall, coming to stand a few paces behind Keefe. How he wished he had any of his tools on hand. Human eyes were useless.

He realised Superman had stopped in the middle of the aisle, scanning his surroundings surreptitiously. He would have to get a move on soon before people got suspicious, but— _there_. Bruce kept his face impassive even as he caught it. A miniature twitch of Superman’s right hand. Whatever the threat was, he’d found it.

Clark fought not to let his panic show on his face. There was a bomb, underneath one of the seats. There was a bomb, and there was a timer, ticking.

Knowing he would give himself away, he turned his head, looking right at Wayne, who was leaning against the wall, looking for all the world relaxed and vaguely indifferent.

“Get them out of here,” he mouthed.

The explosion could be heard across several blocks surrounding the Capitol and the National Mall, smoke clouding the sky, people out in the square and the neighbouring streets ducking down in fear. A blur of red and blue came hurtling towards the ground.

Once he was out in the open, Bruce took out his phone. “Alfred, where is he? Where did he come down?”

“I’m still looking. What on earth happened in there?”

“I don’t know exactly, just… Keefe said he never sent back the checks, said he never got them. Alfred, it must have been Luthor. If we hadn’t gotten to Keefe, he’d have used him to do this.”

“To blow up the committee?”

“Yeah.”

“How did Superman know?”

Bruce’s eyes scanned the sky, but there was nothing but dissipating smoke. “I warned him. I tried to make sure he wouldn’t know it was me, but I think he did, anyway. I didn’t know it was a bomb, I just told him to watch out. He must have seen it walking in. He told me to get everyone out, then he dove for someone’s chair, ripped something out from underneath and… shit, he just tore through the door and out the windows.”

“He took it up into the sky to get it away from anyone on the ground.”

“Yeah.”

“And by the looks of it, he absorbed the blast.”

Bruce stopped dead in his tracks. “Where is he?”

“Hold on, I’m triangulating his position from every available camera… Found him. Three blocks west from you.”

He started running. “Guide me.”

“Master Bruce, you can’t go. You can’t be seen anywhere near him.”

“Alfred, now is not the time—”

“Now is not the time to do something foolish. I’ve directed emergency services towards his location, they’ll be with him in five minutes.”

“Alfred, if he’s—”

“If he’s dead, there’s nothing you can do for him, anyway. Turn around, go back to your car, come back to Gotham. Let this play out.”

** * **

Back in Gotham, Bruce watched the news. He watched LexCorp for so much as a twitch. He watched his own hands as they shook.

Eight hours after the explosion in the sky above Washington, Superman stepped in front of a couple dozen cameras, together with a visibly shaken Senator Finch. His cape was singed, and dark with soot.

“My name is Kal-El, from the planet Krypton,” Superman intoned for the world to hear. Clark Kent’s voice rang out among the lowered pitch for Bruce to hear. Beside him, Alfred stilled in his tinkering.

"I’m sorry for what happened today. I am sorry that this planet was attacked by the last of my kind. I am sorry for what I let happen in Nairomi.

“I’m sorry,” he continued, “for scaring you when I should have talked to you. You have no idea who I am, or what I am. The truth is, until about half a year ago, neither did I. I had no idea I was from Krypton, sent to Earth when I was a baby because my planet was dying. My biological parents only sought to save me, and what was left of Krypton. I was a teenager when my father showed me the ship I’d arrived in. He told me that I must have been sent here for a reason. He thought that reason was to… to lead humanity. To show mankind that it is not alone in the universe. My father died when I was eighteen. I could have saved him.”

Clark’s voice broke on the last syllable.

"But that would have meant revealing what I could do. He always said I would know when the time was right, and that day he told me no. He died protecting me. Since that day, I have had no doubt of human strength. Or my human parents’ love. I went away after he died, and I hid myself away. I was scared of what would happen when people learnt I existed. I was frightened I would fail again. Afraid people would hate me for what I am.

“And then, that decision was taken away from me. The world found out about me, but so did the last of my kind. What happened that day deserved no monument. I deserve no monument.”

A titter went through the assembled crowd of journalists. Bruce leaned forward in his seat.

“I am not a god. I am no higher power. I am not above humanity. I only wish to use my powers to protect the people on this planet. Earth is my home.”

Silence followed. Superman’s eyes scanned the people before him and, just for a moment, he looked nervous.

“I’ll take any of your questions.”

Another moment of silence, then the assembled reporters burst out with questions, nearly falling over each other.

Bruce muted the TV.

“Well. Aren’t you glad you didn’t set a trap to kill him.”

** * **

As it turned out, it wasn’t quite so easy finding either Superman or Clark Kent when both of them really did not want to be found. Following the press conference, which had gone on for about two hours, he’d vanished, aided by a small military team that Bruce had a feeling had been squeezed out of General Swanwick by Lois Lane. Still, even Superman had to turn his phone back on. As soon as he received a signal, he yelled for Alfred to keep tracking it, taking the steps two at a time.

Superman was going home.

—

“Clark!” his mother called as she came running from the house to meet him.

“Mom.” He swept her into a hug as she reached him, holding her close.

By the time Superman had changed out of the suit and into some of the clothes Clark kept stashed at his mother’s house for when he visited, it was dark outside. They’d ended up in the kitchen, Clark telling her everything that had happened the past few days. The last time he’d seen her had been before he’d made the decision to ask Senator Finch for a hearing.

“… and then I—” Clark stopped when he heard a noise from very far away. The sound of a very distinctive engine.

“Clark, what’s wrong? Is someone coming?”

“I think so.”

“Go. Now.”

“No, I… I don’t think he’s looking for trouble.”

“Who?”

—

Bruce set the Bat down in front of the house. For a moment, he sat in darkness, asking himself if this was a good idea. He could see shadows move beyond the window on the left. Superman had to know that he was here already.

“Well. Nothing for it.”

The hatch opened with a hiss, he unbuckled himself and got out. Landing in the soft grass of the lawn, he idly wondered if he’d ever even been to Kansas before.

He waited.

Maybe ten seconds later, the porch light went on, and through the door stepped none other than Clark Kent.

“Stay here,” Clark whispered to his mother, motioning for her to stay back in the hallway where she couldn’t be seen in the dark. He turned on the porch light to announce his arrival. His heart hammered in his chest as he put his hand on the doorknob. _Leap of faith_ , he reminded himself.

Nothing could have prepared him for what was waiting. He’d seen the Batman before, but from afar. Now, he was standing on his mother’s lawn, not twenty feet from him, the unforgiving cowl a visceral reminder of the mission the Batman had given himself. Not even knowing who was wearing it was making this any easier. And what if he’d been wrong, after all?

His eyes sought those beyond the mask.

Neither of them spoke.

Clark watched as the Bat reached up, watched as gloved hands swiftly undid invisible claps that fastened at the neck. Watched as hands raised to draw away what mystery remained between them.

Greying hair falling into his forehead, Bruce Wayne looked towards him, the bat symbol on his chest barely visible in the dim light.

“Bruce.”

“Hello, Clark.”

Clark didn’t know what else to say when he saw Bruce’s eyes flicker towards the doorway. Sensing his mother creeping closer, he smiled.

“It’s OK,” he said for both her and Bruce’s benefit. Moving aside, he waved her closer. With a searching look at her son, Martha came through the door, her eyes immediately drawn to the figure in front of them. She took in the heavily armoured suit, bat emblazoned on the chest, the thing he held under his arm that look like a helmet, and the cape pooling at his feet.

“Who are you?”

“I’m a friend of your son’s.”

—

“So you’re the Batman, huh.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And did Clark change your mind?”

“He did.”

“Good.” With that, Martha left the room. “I’ll give the two of you some privacy.”

Leaning in the doorway, Clark watched the picture unfold before him. Batman, at his mother’s kitchen table, heavy gauntlets folded on the striped table cloth. With his mask off, Clark finally got to reconcile the two halves of the whole, even if the setting was more than a little bizarre.

“Were you really planning on taking the Kryptonite to try and kill me?”

Bruce’s expression was as carefully blank as his voice when he answered, “not to kill you.”

“To torture me? Find out where I’m from, and what I’m doing here?”

“Maybe.”

“To scare me?”

“Yes.”

Satisfied, he nodded.

Bruce’s voice surprised him. “I blamed you for what happened that day. For all the deaths, all the destruction. I thought that if you couldn’t be controlled, you had to be brought down.”

“What changed your mind?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Bruce’s mouth. “You reminded me that that is exactly what Gotham thinks about the Bat.”

Clark stepped closer, putting his hands on the back of one of the chairs. “The Bat doesn’t kill.”

Bruce frowned. “Nor does Superman.”

“I did that day. I killed Zod.”

“From what I understand, you had no choice.”

“I should have kept him out of the city, I—”

At the defeated tone in Clark’s voice, Bruce stood and moved next to him. “I should have forbidden Jason to go after the Joker. It doesn’t change what happened.”

“So you’re saying it’s all forgiven?”

“I’m saying we both have blood on our hands that isn’t ours.” Clark finally met his gaze at that. “Kal,” Bruce murmured softly, watching as blue eyes filled with grief. “You can be the hero that I never could. You walk in the sun. I go out in daylight in this getup, people think the world is ending. The Bat only comes out at night, he was made to be feared, not loved. But Superman, he can give them hope.”

“Not everyone will see it that way.”

“Not everyone ever does. The question is, are you willing to pay that price?”

“It’s not justice I’m looking for, Bruce. I don’t go out handing sentences to criminals.”

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Then what?”

“Save the world.”

“I can’t do that alone, Bruce. Don’t you see, I tried!”

“You won’t have to.”

Clark’s eyes widened. “You?”

“Me. And, maybe, a few others.”

Clark gaped at the realisation. “Metahumans.”

Bruce nodded. “Come on back to Gotham with me. There’s something I have to show you.” Without waiting for Clark’s reply, he pushed past him to leave the kitchen.

“Bruce, wait.” He stopped just on Clark’s other side, armoured chest plate brushing his arm. The younger man wasn’t looking at him. “There are people who love the Bat. People he’s saved.”

“Then let me save you,” the Batman’s voice rumbled from his chest before Bruce could stop himself. Clark’s head whipped up to look at him, but he blinked, and the Bat was gone.

Bruce found Martha Kent in the living room, looking out the window into the dark and absent-mindedly petting the family dog. “Mrs Kent. Thank you for admitting me into your home.”

She fixed him with a look. “It’s the cape,” she said and stood. “Inspires confidence.”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Were you at the Capitol this morning?”

“I was.”

“Clark said he received a warning.”

“That was me.”

She nodded, thoughtful. “There’s something coming, isn’t there?”

Bruce could only nod in return.

“Look out for one another.” She moved past him to say goodbye to her son.

*

Back at the cave, Alfred rolled his eyes at the TV.

“Oh, so Earth is his home, he says? Yeah, well, I can’t remember giving him a visa and a work permit!” Thunderous applause from the Republican convention.

“Shut your face, you turnip,” Alfred growled and changed the channel.

“Alfred,” he heard Master Bruce’s voice from the top of the stairs.

“Down here,” he called back, going back to tinkering with the new suit he’d been rewiring. “How did it go in Kansas?”

“Kansas is alright,” said a voice he’d so far only heard once. On the news. To his credit, he didn’t drop his tools and he didn’t bang his head on the lamp he’d angled low over the work bench. When he looked up, what he saw what so surreal he had to adjust his glasses to cover for his moment of speechlessness. Bruce would never let him live it down.

Superman and Batman, the latter without his cowl, standing side by side, so much larger than life they seemed to fill the entire room.

“Well,” he huffed. “Now that you’ve made your grand entrance, how about you put your heads together to solve our little problem?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Master Bruce smile rather widely.

“He’s pleased we’re not bashing each other’s heads in, too. C’mon.”

When the two men reappeared a few minutes later, they were wearing street clothes. The man also known as Superman seemed to be wearing his own that he must have brought along. Alfred idly wondered if Master Wayne might be a tiny bit disappointed at that.

“Welcome, Master Kent.” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Bruce’s slightly pained look at the greeting.

“Alfred, am I right?” Clark held out his hand for him to shake.

“You are, sir.” If he didn’t know better, the Kryptonian’s cheeks flushed a little at the honorific.

“Please, just call me Clark.”

“As you wish.”

—

Bruce decided to take pity on him. “You’ll get used to Alfred’s idiosyncrasies,” he joked, putting a hand on Clark’s elbow to steer him towards the console.

“They’re not idiosyncrasies, Master Bruce, they’re called manners,” the man peered at him over the top of his glasses. “Not something you’d know very much about.”

Bruce only just kept from rolling his eyes. Still, seeing someone take the mickey out of Batman seemed to relax Clark somewhat, so he let it stand. He sat down at the console, Clark coming to stand just behind him. The younger man’s eyes roamed the collection of monitors.

“You had me under a microscope,” he murmured.

“And you didn’t?” That earned him a reluctant smile. “Here, let me show you who Luthor has been tracking.”

One by one, he showed Clark the surveillance videos and photos of the metahumans Luthor had been tracking. He saved the folder containing all the information on Diana Prince for last, wanting to see if Clark recognised her. He did.

“She was at the fundraiser,” he breathed. Bruce nodded. “When I went downstairs the second time retrieve the drive, she’d already gotten her hands on it. To borrow it, not steal it, apparently. She wanted me to have the intel — except for this, probably. But she couldn’t break the encryption, so she handed it back over to me a week later. Said there was something on it that belonged to her.”

“Not just belongs… it _is_ her.” Clark stared at the photograph as if trying to memorise it. “Any lead on the people in that photograph with her?”

“Nothing I could find.”

“Do you think she’d talk to us if we reached out to her?”

Bruce weighed their options. “It can’t hurt to try.”

** * **

When Diana received two emails from Bruce Wayne in the space of half an hour, she sat down heavily at the desk in her hotel room. The first informed of what she had already known would happen. He had cracked the encryption on Luthor’s files, and he’d found her. Scrolling down slowly, she read all the questions he had for her.

Instinctively, she bristled at his words. “WHAT are you?”, like she was some _creature_ , to be analysed and catalogued. She was a warrior, and she’d seen what men could do. She hadn’t realised how long she’d sat, staring at her own photograph. Near the end of the first World War, in her armour, ready to fight — ready to _end_ the fight. She let her eyes linger on the face of the man beside her. Trevor had once promised her that mankind would never betray her. It wasn’t a promise he could keep.

Diana was about to close her laptop and continue packing her things when she received the second message.

—

“Sirs,” Alfred looked up from his work station in alarm. “Are you getting the same readouts from Metropolis as I am.”

“What’s wrong?” Clark came up behind him and searched the screens anxiously.

Appearing on Alfred’s other side, Bruce leaned in closer to get a good look. “The energy readouts from the crash site are spiking. Something’s going on in there.”

Clark nearly jumped when his phone rang in his pocket. He checked the caller ID and exchanged a look with Bruce, who looked at him questioningly. “Lois, what’s going on?”

“Oh, Clark, thank goodness. I’m in DC, but I’m about to get on a chopper to Metropolis, where are you?”

With another glance at Bruce, Clark answered, “I’m in Gotham.”

“What?”

“I found Batman, Lois.”

“Clark, are you sure—”

“I’ll explain everything, ok, but we have to get to Metropolis, something is happening with Zod’s ship.”

“That’s why I’m calling.”

Clark stopped dead. “What did you find out?” Quickly, he hit the button to put Lois on speaker.

“General Swanwick told me that Lex Luthor has been given unlimited access to the ship.” Bruce’s eyes snapped up. So even he hadn’t known. He turned and threw himself back into his chair, fingers flying over the keys.

“No.”

“And to General Zod’s body.”

“Where are you going?”

“Where do you need me?”

“Stay in DC. Get to the General. If this turns out to be an attack, he’s going to be one calling the shots. You have to be the voice of reason in that room.”

“You mean tell the President what to do.”

“You’re the only one who could.”

“What will you do?”

“Suit up.” For the second time that night, Bruce started running. This time, Clark was following him.

** * **

“Do you think she’ll come?”

“I think she knows too much now to stay away.”

Batman moved silently as he stepped up next to Clark, who’d landed on the roof of the Daily Planet. From there, they were getting a good view of the crash site.

“What the hell’s he doing.”

“Let’s find out.” Superman was about to take off when he hesitated. “Do you, uh… need a lift?”

“I’m good, thanks.” Without another word, he flung himself off the rooftop. Clark watched as the cape extended into wings, the Batman gliding through the dark until he serenely unclipped a grapple hook from his belt and fired at one of the cranes, using the line to propel him further forward and up again.

“Fair enough.” He jumped after him.

—

The closer they got to the crashed ship, the stronger were the energy disturbances around them.

“I feel a great disturbance in the—”

“If you say Force, I am actually going to punch you.”

Clark decided it wasn’t worth the sprain.

“We have to get in there,” a third voice interrupted them. As one, they turned to the right. They both recognised the armour, the shield and the sword that moved with her as if she’d held them in her hands as long as time. Perhaps she had.

“So you’re with us?”

“I’m with the people of Earth.”

Superman and Batman exchanged a look. Then shrugged.

“I’ll go first.”

“You’re the one he wants dead the most,” Diana felt compelled to point out.

“Exactly.” A fraction of a second later, he was gone.

Diana sighed.

“So… Wonder Woman.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“As you like. You up for some more stealing?”

That, however, got her attention. “What did you have in mind?”

The Bat pointed at a truck marked LexCorp outside the containment hangar. “A little Kryptonite. Fool brought it with him when he realised I wasn’t going to take it.”

“Fool, indeed.”

—

“Lex?” Superman called over the roar of the Genesis Chamber. “Lex, where are you?”

“Right here!” the grating voice came up just ahead. Now he remembered why he hadn’t liked the man from the very beginning. “I was wondering when you’d turn up, you slippery bastard.” Once he got closer, he could see that Luthor was _fuming_ with rage. “You,” he pointed his finger at Superman accusingly. “You and the goddamn Bat. I had everything arranged, but you just had to go and fall in love with him.”

“Arranged what?”

“Fight night! Black and blue, day and knight. See what I did there? Batman gets the Kryptonite, Batman sees Capitol Hill go up in flames, Batman lays a trap. Superman kills the Bat, or dies trying.”

“I would never have fought Batman for you.”

“Oh, not for me, no. But for your mother! For Lois! For them, you would have brought me the Bat’s head, wouldn’t you?”

“Where are they?” Superman ground out, advancing on Luthor, who danced on the spot to make it look like he wasn’t afraid. Or perhaps he really wasn’t.

“Oh, not to worry, they are where you left them. They’re no good to me if they aren’t leverage. Because, you know,” he continued as he took a step backwards and the Genesis Chamber illuminated at his command, “I figured: if man won’t kill God — the Devil will do it.” With a flourish, he turned. Superman followed the gesture of his hand with his eyes, only to see something writhing within the membranes of the chamber.

“What have you done,” he breathed.

“I made something for you,” Luthor beamed. “Your very own Kryptonian Deformity, your… Doomsday has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

“You’re insane!” Superman had to yell over the noise now.

“Nah! Uh-uh!” Luthor waved a finger. “What is it with people slapping mental illness on everything they don’t understand? I’m not insane. I’m just a bad, bad man, Clark. And now, it is time… for the reckoning!”

At his words, the membrane broke and from it burst a creature like the ones the hologram of Jor-El had shown him once, in the old ship, during one of too few Kryptonian history lessons he’d been able to give his son. Those had been pre-historic and believed to be extinct — a certainty with Krypton’s destruction, but this, this was very real.

The creature roared.

Superman attacked.

—

Outside the hangar, Wonder Woman paused as she heard the horrific roar from inside the ship.

“Go on, do it,” the Batman urged her on. Focusing on her target, she tightened her grip on her sword, then brought it down. “It worked!” The distorted voice grated with the very human undertones of surprised delight.

“Hold it steady,” she barked at him, and struck again.

“That should do it,” he said before she could raise her blade a third time, and grabbed the steel rod he’d torn off the scaffolding. “If that thing was made from the body of General Zod, then it’s as vulnerable to Kryptonite as Superman. Use this, make a spear, we got a chance!”

“We need his heat vision to fuse the two together!”

“Let’s just hope whatever’s in there lets him out al—”

At that moment, the hangar all but exploded.

—

“He’s taking it into space!”

“Are they within range of our missiles?”

“In range, sir.”

“Prepare the red keys.”

“Mr President!” Lois jumped forward as General Swanwick stared at the phone in horror. Of all the things he’d expected of today, it wasn’t being ordered to nuke Superman. “Sir, there were reports of massive surges of energy _and_ radiation from the crash site. We cannot be sure what striking this creature with a nuclear missile might do to it.”

“Who are you?” came the incredulous query over the speakers.

“I’m the journalist your agents used to infiltrate a warlord camp. I’m the journalist who found Superman, and I am telling you, he will not survive if you do this. The creature only he can stop just might.”

“What would you have me do, Miss Lane? Nothing, sit on my hands? I am the President of the United States!”

“And you cannot save everyone, sir. He can. If you let him.”

—

“Oh, God,” Bruce whispered. His eyes followed the barely visible blur of red and blue until it vanished beyond the clouds. Behind him, Diana whirled around.

“Luthor!” she snarled. Before Bruce could say anything, she had rushed inside.

“Great,” he muttered. “Alfred!” he called. “Alfred, what is he doing?”

“From what I can tell, he’s taking whatever it is up into space. Hang on, the satellite is almost in range… there. Do you have any idea what his plan is?”

“None, we didn’t even know that was in there. But they’ve got to come back down at some point. Give me their trajectory.”

“Come back down?”

“My guess: take it up high enough, give it a good punch, hope it flattens on impact,” Bruce replied, bending down to pick up some of the splinters of Kryptonite off the ground. Unclipping his grenade launcher from his belt, he opened the capsules as quickly as he could, exchanging the gas pellets with Kryptonite.

“Long as it doesn’t flatten everything else on impact. And what are you doing?”

“Tear gas for Kryptonians.” Bruce reloaded the capsules.

“Well, let’s hope to Christ this works.”

Batman looked up at the sounds of a struggle from the entrance to the hangar. “Diana?” he called.

Through the busted airlock, he saw her drag the body of Luthor, unconscious. At her nod, he took a pair of cuffs from his belt. Together, they stuffed him into the back of the truck. Bolting the door shut, Batman showed her the grenade launcher.

“I’ve got this. We need to get it on open ground, stall it or wound it enough. If the grenades work, maybe we can stun it for a while. Then one of us drives the spear in.”

“Bruce!” Batman cocked his head. “You were right. Calculated impact… well.”

“What, Alfred?”

“Looks like he’s going for the monument.”

“Oh, shit.”

The creature didn’t flatten, exactly. It was more of an… aborted bounce. Still, it was dazed, and they had to make the best of what little time they had.

“Clark!” Batman shouted, knowing he would hear him. “I need you to put a sustained blast of heat vision on Diana’s position.” Pushing two pieces of debris together to form a makeshift vice around the Kryptonite. “And I need Diana to not accidentally take my head off,” he added under his breath. When nothing came, he rolled his eyes. “Just. do it!” he yelled.

Not a second later, he had to shield his eyes as the focused beam struck the ground a few feet away, then went upwards slowly, crumbling the rock until, finally, Diana angled her wrists to redirect the laser right into the base of the Kryptonite.

“Stop!” he bellowed, and immediately, the ray was gone. He plunged the steel into the base of the mineral, knowing it would melt down to fuse the two parts together into a weapon. Before the the heat could turn the entire rod to goo, he grabbed one of the nitro sprays from his belt and froze it in place. “Now we’re talking.” He vaulted onto the nearest building. From his vantage point, he could see Diana had joined Superman in fighting the creature. Together, they were wearing it down, bouncing it back and forth between them. This wouldn’t last, he knew, because when Diana severed one of its arms at the elbow, it howled in rage. He had to get down there, fast.

—

Superman watched in terror as bone protrusions grew from the severed limb. Doomsday was still absorbing energy from the wreckage of the ship, and growing at an alarming pace. It was about twice the size of the pit it had crawled out of, now.

Throwing himself forward, he whirled around it, landing a hit before dodging Doomsday’s fist, and pulling it to the side to allow the warrior, Wonder Woman, another stab at its legs. Again, it howled. Clark wasn’t sure whether it could feel the pain, or whether pain was a constant. From what he understood of the chamber, it created stronger life by forcing the same being to die over and over again, until the agony of dying was part of its DNA.

“Clark, you have to hold it!” Bruce’s voice rang through the rushing in his ears. From below, Diana tossed something at him before striking again at Doomsday’s legs, knocking its feet out from under it. Its flailing arms knocked her nearly a hundred yards away, which seemed to do little but make her more determined. Examining what he had in his hands, he recognised it from one of the files’ descriptions. The lasso. Grabbing one end, he let it unfurl, staring at it in wonder, feeling its power. Searching for the other two on the ground, he watched Batman toss something to Diana, its tip glowing green. The Kryptonite. Had he stolen it after all? Something in Clark’s chest constricted, but he didn’t have the luxury of doubt.

“Clark, now!”

Letting the power of the lasso flow through him, he thanked his father for raising him a farm hand.

—

As the glowing material flew through the air, Diana readied her stance. The creature roared as it realised it was bound. She watched as Superman anchored himself to the ground, using the remains of a high-rise for leverage. Nodding in approval, she checked that Batman had found his position. Standing all on top of a caved-in building, he raised the grenade launcher and took aim.

“One!” he called, firing a projectile. It worked as he’d hoped, dispersing the Kryptonite.

Clark watched as the green mist exploded around Doomsday, its next breath laboured. He felt its effects as if from far away, outside of himself, and he steeled himself for the next round, tightening his grip on the lasso.

“Quickly!” Diana called to the Bat.

Bruce fired twice more in rapid succession, watching as the beast’s knees buckled even as it fought against the hold of the lasso. From where he stood, he couldn’t see Clark. “Now!”

Diana took a deep breath, sending a swift prayer to the gods. She leapt.

Throwing all of her might into the plunge, she barrelled into the creature, aiming for its heart. With a sickening crack, she broke the skin as it roared, and drove the spear in deep. Just in time, she saw the severed arm rise to strike, and she leapt away, landing on the ground behind Superman. He was struggling, she could tell. But before she could get to him, the creature threw itself forward, nearly yanking him off his feet. It turned around, swiping for him with its other arm.

—

Clark dodged it, barely, feeling himself weaken. He couldn’t see Bruce, couldn’t see Wonder Woman, he could only see Luthor’s creation in front of him. He could only see the threat to his world, and that it refused to die. Lunging forward, he gathered all his strength for one more flight. Rising high into the air, he threw himself around. His insides screaming at him, he let his eyes glow red, and took aim.

Bruce felt his blood freeze in veins when he saw Clark rise into the air. “Clark,” he growled, “what are you—”

Heat exploded from Superman’s eyes, plunging into the creature’s chest, forcing the Kryptonite deeper into its flesh. It screamed in anguish, so deafening it made Bruce want to cover his ears.

Then, silence. Bruce watched as it went limp, then stopped. For a moment, everything stood still.

_Clark_.

Superman fell, his cape billowing around his lifeless body. Diana ploughed towards him as he plummeted towards the ground, gritting her teeth. With a grunt, Diana took the brunt of the impact when she caught the Man of Steel in her arms. Sinking to her knees, she set him down as gently as she could, aware of the Bat rushing towards them, his steps reverberating against the debris. She lowered her head towards Superman’s face, straining to hear him breathing.

Bruce came to a crashing halt on Clark’s other side. Sinking down, he laid a hand on his chest, over his heart. It was still beating. Bending his head, he curled in on himself, adrenaline and fear still fighting the realisation that he had not yet lost someone else. His other hand found Superman’s cape, curling into the fabric.

“Kal-El,” he heard Diana’s voice call out quietly. “Kal-El, wake up.” Raising his head, he saw that Clark was fighting his way to consciousness, his eyes barely opening.

“Clark, stay with me,” he breathed, inching closer, feeling a hollow sort of victory when blue eyes opened wider and focused on him. “That’s it, wake up. Come on. Stay with me.”

—

Clark felt like the first time on Zod’s ship. His lungs were caving in, the coppery tang of blood in his mouth, and every muscle screaming with pain. There was a weight on his chest, and he felt like he should know it. _Clark, stay with me,_ he heard a voice, deep and familiar. It reached for him, through the dark and the pain. Opening his eyes, he saw the Bat, and just behind him, the lights of the city they had saved. Together.

He started coughing, his body shaking, and couldn’t stop. Strong hands helped him roll onto his side, held him steady.

_We have to get him out of here. Stay with him, I’ll be right back._

He felt the body next to him move away. Reaching out a hand, he caught flowing fabric between his fingers.

—

Bruce felt his cape snag on something as he moved to run. Turning, he saw that Clark had reached for him. He knelt, gently extracting the cloth from Clark’s hold. “I’ll be right back,” he whispered. “Just giving you a lift.”

Leaving Clark with Diana, he raced across the ruins, grappling back onto the crane when he was close enough. From there, back to the roof of the Planet. He got into the Bat, starting the engine.

“Alfred.”

“Master Bruce.” Alfred’s voice over the comms was carefully blank.

“Get the med bay ready.”

Clark didn’t remember being carried into the Bat, didn’t remember Wonder Woman strapping him in, didn’t remember her assuring Bruce that she would find them at the house in the morning. He didn’t remember the flight across the bay towards Gotham, didn’t remember Bruce panting as he carried him down the flights of stairs into the cave, didn’t remember being laid down gently onto a cot.

Bruce remembered all of it. Remembered being pushed aside by Alfred as he hurried to monitor his vital signs, remembered being ordered to either make himself useful or _leave_ if all he could do was stare.

Bruce remembered waiting.

** * **

** Three days later. **

When Clark woke, the first thing he knew was the soft trickling of water. He opened his eyes, blinking against the artificial lighting. He looked around when his vision cleared, trying to get his bearings. He recognised this place.

Underground, panes of glass, shafts of light. Water coming down one side, like a little waterfall. Computers, equipment, screens flashing.

Bruce.

Sitting in a chair next to the cot, chin propped up in his hand. His eyes were closed, his breathing deep and even.

He was safe.

Exhaustion pulled Clark back under.

** * **

The next time he woke, he felt strong enough to sit up. Looking down at himself, he realised that he was still in his suit, electrodes attached to his chest beneath it. Carefully, he reached inside and pulled them off. Suddenly, he heard steps thundering from above.

“Alfred!” Bruce, yelling at the top of his lungs. “Alfred!”

Fairly skidding to a halt in the doorway, Bruce was standing inside the med bay seconds later, his eyes wide. He was drawing a deep breath, presumably to shout for Alfred again, when he stopped dead in his tracks, staring at Clark as though he’d grown a second head.

“I thought — you were crashing,” he said, pointing at Clark. “You were crashing.” Looking down at Clark’s hands, he saw the electrodes dangling from his fingers. “You idiot.” Before Clark could find his voice, Bruce advanced on him. “You idiot.” Strong arms went around his shoulders, pulling him into a tight embrace. Letting the wires fall from his grasp, Clark slipped his arm around Bruce’s back, holding on.

That was how Alfred found them, stumbling in a moment later, deaf to the world.

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, I watched Batman v Superman. And after two and a half solid hours of cringe, I decided to put things where they belong. Meaning, the plot in order. The characters in their right minds and using ALL their abilities to figure out the conflict they're in. Two heroes who're actually a little more in touch with reality, and a third who decides she won't stay out of it any longer.
> 
> In short: a Batman who isn't murderous, a Superman who isn't oscillating between arrogant and useless, and a Wonder Woman who could still kick their asses.  
> Also featuring: actual battle tactics. Because shit, son, that was uncoordinated.
> 
> Not pictured: kidnapping Lois and Martha, 'cause I've had it up to here with the little boy tearing down the world for mommy. Jesus. (Worst change of heart plot point they could have chosen. Oh, wait, you're accepting that you're gonna die, but you're telling me to save Martha?? Like, I have no idea who Martha is or where she is, but I'm sure this tidbit of info will help me save her just before I drive a Kryptonite spear through your heart--WAIT. MARTHA IS YOUR MOTHER? MINE, TOO! Aww, man, you should've told me. Come on, we're best buds now, let me save your red-caped ass. Brb.)
> 
> If there's ever anything you want to talk to me about, point out to me, ask me about the characters I write for, here's how you can find me:
> 
> \-- tumblr: screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse  
> \-- twitter: @andreamareike


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